


Ghosts and Shadows

by s3rp3nt1ne



Category: AFK Arena (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Enemies to Friends, Fawkes is awkward but a sweetheart, Gen, Gore, M/M, Mild Gore, Pre-Slash, Reunions, Thane has the emotional availability of a spoon sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 06:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s3rp3nt1ne/pseuds/s3rp3nt1ne
Summary: Thane feels old and worries daily about Esperia. When he sees shadows that look suspiciously like Baden Rayne, he believes himself to be crazy, though he has a better grasp of his senses than he thinks...





	Ghosts and Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Watch out for a little bit of body horror toward the end of the fic. I put it in the tags, so this is your last warning if you're not into that. I don't think it's very intense, but if you're super not into it, I can imagine that some of the imagery might be disturbing. Happy reading!

House Rayne was cold with winter, though Thane was certain that the cold was even more potent this year. It had been many years since he had been a young man, long enough that he felt the cold gnaw at his joints and seep into his bones. Even sitting near the fire, he could scarcely feel its warmth. He stared at the paper he had been reading from, a letter from a nearby holdfast that had been having troubles with Mauler tribes. It detailed the losses, perhaps even conveyed a warning, but most of all, it pleaded for assistance. Thane threw the letter into the fire and stood to look out the window at the vast, wintery lands and the small village beyond.

In better days, he might have dispatched a squadron of knights, with himself at the forefront, but these days were lean. Estrilda had been off fighting for who knows how long, at the forefront of the war against the Hypogeans. Her letters before had been frequent, but now they had dwindled to one every few months, if that, leaving with Thane to force his worry for her to the back of his mind and focus on his duties as castellan. He was to keep House Rayne and all its holdings safe and sound. With threats at all sides, he could only watch others fall. His own armies had grown thin with helping and he had learned better long ago to not overstep his own abilities.

Thane squinted into the setting sun, a migraine pulsing through his left eye. Dura, he was getting old. He had done nothing more than drill the guards today and oversee some trade agreements with the Rayne holdings and another a few miles south, but it had taken its toll. He startled as the old butler, Mindle, stepped into the room with scarcely a shuffle. “Sir? Supper will be ready in a half an hour.”

“Thank you, Mindle,” Thane said, turning. The old man was weathered, but he stood as Thane did, with the dignity of the proud who would rather die than stoop in their old age.

“Would there be anything else, Sir?”

“Yes, actually. Has the day seemed especially cold?” Thane asked.

“No, Sir.” If the question seemed odd, Mindle gave no sign. His pale face remained impassive. His eyes, expressionless as a dead man’s.

Thane dismissed the butler and looked back out into the white. It was already dark. Out of sight was the wood, where Wilders would sometimes bring news. It was this strategic placement that convinced Thane that it wasn’t just luck that kept House Rayne from those who would seek to take it, whether Mauler, or Hypogean, or Graveborn. Still, the powers the wood held didn’t bear thinking about. A thousand worries plagued his mind every day; he did not wish for more. He had never thought himself a worrier, but he had become come so with age.

A half an hour passed in a few seconds and a bell summoned the remaining household to dinner. Thane exited of his study, walking slowly. It would do to compose himself, so as not to make the household uneasy.

He passed through the Hall of Ancestors on his way to the smaller dining room. In it, family portraits of Raynes going back hundreds of years hung on the walls. When he came through, it started with Raynes he had not known. They were men, strong of limb, that had taken the surrounding people by force in order to serve their king, with ladies of beauty, and children with hair as white as their own. As Thane walked through time, the dress became more closely related to his own, until he came to the last few paintings. One had old Gallor Rayne and his wife, Malora. Surrounding them were their many children, white-haired and round. The oldest, Baden, stood at his father’s right hand, no more than fourteen. His younger brothers and sisters surrounded him, each of the boys taken by death, the sisters married off. Thane had studied this painting more often than he cared to think of, searching for the young man he had known in the eldest boy, feeling a detached sadness for the loss of this boy in his later years.

The next painting, though, Thane tried more often to avoid. Now, though, he looked at it with eyes tracing dutifully every face. The only one from the portrait who still lived was Estrilda, a baby with bright blue eyes sitting in her mother’s lap, smiling a toothless smile. Her numerous brothers stood around her, smiling too. The older brothers were gallant, clearly looking to prove themselves on a battlefield when they were old enough. The younger ones had a look of mischief about them, perhaps put into the painting by an artist too fed up to try and capture their likenesses, who instead tried to capture their mischievous smiles and laughter.

Estrilda’s mother, Aurelia, smiled as she had in youth, with long bronze hair curling over her shoulders. Thane remembered her well, and his fondest memory of her was at her wedding. She had glowed then, as she had glowed when in the company of her children. It was how he preferred to remember her, happy with her posterity yelling around her in barely contained chaos, with Estrilda holding onto her skirts. Shortly after her sons and nephews had been killed, she had continuous bouts of pneumonia. Thane had watched over her, had even called on the Temple of Light, but it hadn’t been enough. She had passed when Estrilda was at war in the night, a sickly shell of the intelligent matron she had been.

Finally, he came to Baden. He looked as he did in Thane’s memory: noble, kind, and with a hint of mischief in his hazel eyes. His white blonde hair hung to his shoulders. He wore his ornamental armor, holding the hilt of his longsword with his right hand. The left hand sat protectively on Aurelia’s shoulder. He was wiser than he had looked at fourteen, but no less enthusiastic or fit for the Rayne mantle. Looking at him now, Thane saw Estrilda in the thin lines of his face, and for a moment was comforted.

He jumped when a cool hand touched his own. Thane cursed himself for his jumpiness. Malora stood behind him, her old face cracked in an apologetic smile. She fitted her hand into his own. “Reminiscing?” she asked. He nodded.

Thane had always liked Malora for always seeming to say the right thing. Perhaps, he thought, it was because she knew a similar pain to his own. She had seen children, grandchildren, husband, and friends fall at the sword or to sickness, and she could only watch from afar. Thane, too, watched from afar now. “Shall we go to dinner?” Thane asked. She smiled and moved her hand to his elbow so he could escort her to the dining room.

“Any news?” she asked. She meant of Estrilda.

“No,” Thane said, “but she can take care of herself on the battlefield. I made sure of that.”

“Yes, but even the best can fall,” Malora said.

They lapsed into a pensive silence until they reached the dining room, where the rest of the household was already seated. The Rayne wards, twin boys with hair red as fire, sat at the end of the table. One of Estrilda’s cousins, Emeral, the last of a ruined house, sat solemnly in her finery, not looking or speaking to the boys. Malora took her seat, and Thane took his own next to her at the right hand of the table. The head of the table would always be left clear until Estrilda arrived home.

Thane said some customary words to begin the meal, things he had said a thousand times before. The food was served. It was a thin chicken breast and dull green peas. Still, it was far better fare than many could boast at these war-torn times. Thane was blissfully allowed to say nothing from here. The two boys argued among themselves, and Malora tried to chat with Emeral, to no avail.

Then he saw it. In the corner of a room, a shadow moved. Pausing, Thane glanced at the others to see if they’d seen what he had seen, but those at the table were preoccupied as they had been before with their own conversations. Thane turned again and saw a shadow move again. His familiar battle instincts came to him again. If anyone had broken into House Rayne, he would dispatch them readily and easily. The place where his left arm used to be suddenly felt whole again, as if the hand was gripping the arm of the chair he was sitting in just as his right hand was as well. It was a familiar sensation; it was as if his body was reminding him that he mustn’t forget his own limitations, lest they truly become a limitation in combat.

Thane pushed his chair back and slipped his right hand into the lining of his coat, feeling for the dagger that he kept there. He walked cautiously to the shadows, stalking his prey. Yet when he got there, there was nothing. The shadows remained as still has they ever had. No one was standing anywhere close.

It was then he noticed the lack of conversation. Thane turned to find the dinner table looking at him nervously. Emeral stared with the wide, frightened eyes of a rabbit in a trap. The two boys stared with the wonderment that lends itself when children watch a stern, disciplined personality do something completely out of the ordinary. “Sir Thane, what are you doing?” the oldest boy, Kalwin, asked.

“I...thought I saw something,” Thane said. He took his hand from his coat and strode to the table. “It was nothing. Continue the meal, please. I apologize for my rudeness.” For a moment, the table stared at him, but when he offered no more explanation, they continued their meal and resumed their conversations. Out of the corner of his eye, Thane saw Malora sneaking glances at him uneasily. Thane found it better to pay attention to the gentlewoman’s worry than the shadows that had begun to move in the corner again.

***

The event at dinner had left Thane shaken. He had retreated to his study, politely declining Kalwin and his younger brother Phan’s requests that he help them practice their swordsmanship. In his study, though, he had no reprieve. He was certain he had seen the shadows move, that it was not his imagination, but none of the others had seen them. Thane wanted to ask Malora if she had seen the shadows move, but even thinking about what he planned on saying sounded like the ravings of a madman.

The additional details, too, did not bear thinking about and were something he would never share with anyone. The shadows had seemed to take shape, at the end, of a person he had known very well. Baden. But Baden had been dead for little more than twenty years now, his body never recovered. He had long passed his time to be a spirit, and it was madness to consider that he had never died.

Thane turned to his work, replying to letters and reviewing finances, until his head drooped, and he fell asleep, his head pillowed in the crook of his elbow.

When he awoke, aching and with his head pounding, his study was shrouded in darkness. The fire had burned low to only coals. Thane tucked his hand into his coat, willing warmth back into it, and cursed himself for falling asleep here. He hoped that Mindle and the maids had left him some warm bricks to warm his bed with.

Thane lit a candle and crept carefully through the halls to his room. The candle created deep, flickering shadows that made him uneasy. When he finally arrived in his room, he blew the candle out. Stumbling in the darkness, he navigated by touch. It was bitterly cold in the room, the fire’s coals only giving a taunting amount of warmth. Once Thane had gotten to his bed, he began to slide off his clothing. Boots were placed on the floor next to the chest at the end of the bed. His surcoat, undershirt, and pants he placed on top of it. Thane dressed in loose night clothes but left his dagger where it was strapped to his leg, and he placed his longsword near his pillow.

Pulling back the covers Thane was relieved as he wrapped himself in them that the servants had indeed left warmed bricks at the foot of his bed, wrapped in wool. They were no longer burning hot, but their lingering warmth had left the sheets comfortable.

With his old joints soothed by the heat, Thane was nearly to sleep when he saw movement again, in the corner of the room. This time, though, it was no shadow. The person, who undeniably had the same build as Baden had, stood in the corner, just watching. Shadows writhed around them, and soon spread to the walls. A diffuse green light was coming from its eyes. Graveborn.

Tensing, Thane made almost no movement, relying on the intruder believing he was asleep. He inched his hand to his longsword. It seemed to take forever and at every moment Thane expected the man to attack, but he merely watched and the shadow danced along the moonlit walls.

Thane burst from his sheets in a flurry, his longsword hitting his adversary’s arm with a resounding crunch. The Graveborn swept at him, searching to hit an arm that wasn’t there. Thane dodged the hit easily. “Guards, intruder!” Thane yelled.

Battling the man was odd, though. At some points he would come close, irrevocably so, so that it seemed there were a million of him that Thane was fighting at once. Then the man would stop, back away, and only make to block his hits. Thane only realized that the man was inching to the balcony window too late. The intruder had jumped out the window. Shaking, Thane looked out, seeing nothing in the grounds below.

Guards burst in, carrying torches to light the way by, swords raised. Thane shook his head, called them off. “He is gone.” The muck on his sword was not blood, and Thane gestured for a torch to burn it off, not wanting to touch the vile stuff. A maid, awoken by the ruckus, nervously came in.

“Sir Thane?”

“Everything is well. Light my candles, if you could, and then go back to sleep.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Soon, the room was awash in a dim glow. Most of the guards had left, off to search for the intruder. The head guard stood by, waiting for more instruction. Thane sunk back into a cushioned chair, his longsword on his lap. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Double the guard. The man was Graveborn, big, and a formidable fighter. When he chose to fight, it was nearly enough to overwhelm me.”

“When he chose to fight, Sir?” the head guard asked.

“Yes. It was peculiar. He did not always press his advantage. In fact, it was as if he did not want to fight me at all, and then all of a sudden would intend to kill me.” Thane shook his head and waved his hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t matter. Find him. I won’t have this household be terrorized by a Graveborn with a bone to pick with the living.”

Left to the silence of his room, Thane was left to ponder what he had seen. Every fiber of his being screamed out in recognition. _Baden._ His profile was the same, the way the man had walked, the style of fighting was all the same. Yet it couldn’t be. It was madness. Baden had been dead for so long, why now would he make his presence known? _Graveborns live by different rules, Thane_, his mind whispered, betraying his…what? Hopes? Fears? It was difficult to tell.

It was madness, Thane decided. He was driven to his very brink by worry for Estrilda, for the family and house he protected, for Esperia. It was his worries, loneliness, and fear that brought on this apparition of his friend. A Graveborn had visited the house this night, that was in no doubt, but it was the pressure Thane had been under than anything else that transmuted a night stalker into his old friend.

Thane was soon lost in his thoughts, and though he had intended to stay awake through the night, he drifted off near the coals of the fire with his longsword over his knees.

***

Thane awoke with a start to the same servant girl stocking the fire. “I’m sorry, Sir Thane. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Thane offered her a weak smile and stood, internally cursing himself for his foolishness at falling asleep. While he dressed and washed himself at the basin in the corner of the room, the maid had left, leaving a blazing fire behind her. Thane stood beside it to catch its warmth as he ordered what he had to do for the day.

He was interrupted by a knock. “Come in,” Thane said. Mindle opened the door, solemn as always.

“Sir Thane, we have some unexpected visitors. Lyca and Fawkes, they said their names were. They said it was urgent they see you as soon as possible.”

“Bring them in and offer them breakfast. Set up the parlor room near the stairs. I’ll be eating with them. Send Malora and our guests my regrets but explain that I had some matters to attend to,” Thane ordered. Mindle bowed and left.

Lyca was famous in the forest as being the Wilders’ “chosen one”, and thusly Thane had met with her a few times about the Wilders’ border near House Rayne. She had been kind and helpful. He had appreciated her. Unlike so many others, she did not overestimate her own abilities and she encouraged those and utilized people who had different talents than herself. Any recommendations Thane had made to keeping her borders from the Hypogeans had been met with thoughtful consideration.

Fawkes, however, Thane knew much less about. He had heard of the bounty hunter’s success against the Hypogeans and his odd affliction, but no more than that. Thane had not always been the most trustworthy of vigilantes, but if Lyca trusted him, it would have to do until he could make the judgments on his own.

Grabbing his longsword and sheathing it to his side, he made his way to the parlor to where Lyca and Fawkes were waiting. The visit made him uneasy. It was not often that House Rayne was called upon by the Wilders, only when something large was going to happen. Thane missed the days when he had been free of this doubt. Life certainly would have been easier if he had been just as carefree as he had been when he was a young man.

When he entered the room, Lyca leapt up, smiling in greeting. “Sir Thane! It is very good to see you again!” Fawkes sat at the table, holding a cup in his hands, his breakfast untouched. His nose and mouth were covered, and his left hand was a brilliant blue. He only nodded in greeting.

Thane bowed and clasped Lyca’s hand. “Welcome, Lady. What brings you and your friend here? I’m afraid I haven’t met him.”

Lyca smiled and Thane was startled to notice that it didn’t quite meet her inhuman, pink eyes. “I suppose I can’t say that it’s a very good business that we’re here, but it may yet not be so bad,” she said. She turned to Fawkes, who had stood with his hands behind his back. “This is Fawkes. He’s here…well, the reason we’re here is because of who he found.”

“Yes. Good to meet you.” Fawkes’s voice was low and raspy, but he stood and clasped Thane’s hand with a politeness Thane hadn’t expected.

“Yes,” Thane said, taking a seat nearest the door. “Please, sit. Tell me why you’re here.”

Lyca and Fawkes did so after him and exchanged glances as if neither was certain who would be better to start the story. Lyca leaned forward to speak, ears twitching in what could only be interpreted as nervousness. “Baden Rayne isn’t dead anymore. He hasn’t been dead for a while, actually.”

Thane’s mind took a moment to catch up, while his stomach clenched instinctively. “What?” he rasped.

“Baden Rayne is Graveborn,” Lyca said. “Fawkes found him, and from what Baden told him, a necromancer brought him back to use as a servant.” Lyca paused, as if waiting for Thane to interrupt her, and when Thane didn’t, she continued. “He managed to kill the necromancer, but he’s been infected with a lich. He’s not in control anymore, though Fawkes did his best to help him.” Lyca gestured to Fawkes’s hand, and he nodded to corroborate the story. 

“He has a strong will,” Fawkes said, rubbing at his blue hand.

Lyca sighed. “It seems Baden was able to handle himself, until he the lich took over again. He went missing and Fawkes came to me for help. We think he could do quite a bit of damage. He can call shadows to help him, like an army.”

Thane nodded. “Why did you think to track him here?”

“From what Fawkes has told me, he thinks very highly of you. You are one of the only connections he has left,” Lyca said. “Call it being hopeful, but we thought he might show up here if he was halfway between the lich’s control and his own.”

The silence that followed was a vast pit that Thane was frightened to leap over. On one hand he was relieved that his senses were not lying to him yet. His sense of duty was already taking over, on how they would capture Baden and what they would do with him after. On the other hand, Thane’s thoughts were filled with the years and years he had grieved, how he had kept watch over his family, how Estrilda would take the news that her father was Graveborn, but alive.

Lyca leaned over and placed a hand over his own. “He cares very much for you. I believe he…if he can get control over this lich, he might stay here and fight with your armies.” Fawkes nodded in agreement.

“We need only to find him,” Lyca said gently. Her eyes were open with kindness and Thane felt an overwhelming urge to cry. He had mourned him and wrestled with his guilt over being the cause of his closest friend’s death, for taking him away from his family. What would he tell Estrilda, _Malora_? The household and the Raynes’ farmers? None of them would take the Graveborn as patriarch, not even if in life he had been Baden Rayne. These thoughts repeated over and over again, until Thane became aware of how long he had said nothing.

Finally, Thane said, “I saw him. We had an intruder last night. In my room. He’s here.”

Lyca and Fawkes exchanged wide-eyed looks and shifted forward. “More in control than I thought,” Fawkes said.

Thane stood and began pacing the room. “What do we do? I’m rubbish at tracking. Always have been better in war. I could fight him, but not if he isn’t right in front of me.”

Lyca stood and put a comforting hand on Thane’s shoulder to stop his frenetic movement. “Sir Thane, do not fear. Fawkes and I have thought this through on our way here, and it as we’ve said; Baden has come home. He may find you yet.”

Thane chuckled, despite himself. “And I should call him as one does a dog?” he spat.

“Worse than a dog with that lich,” Fawkes said.

Thane turned to him, sharply. “Graveborn or not, do not speak ill of the dead. You know so little about him.”

Lyca stepped in front of Thane. “Whatever happens, we’ll see tonight when the shadows make him feel comfortable. If Baden doesn’t show up, then I’ll have to track him, and perhaps Fawkes can call on his other bounty hunter friends to help find him if I haven’t asked too much of him.” Fawkes shrugged at this and snuck a biscuit around his mask. “We may find that we won’t need to fight Baden, only remind him that he has enough will over his body. He has broken the spells twice before. He can do it again.”

Thane sighed. The initial wave of fear, revulsion, and confusion had left him. He felt as peaceful as the quiet winter landscape outside. It was another battle to win, this one not fought with swords but with willpower and memory; in other words, it was familiar territory. “I am deeply in your debt. The both of you. You have no idea what it means to this House that you’ve taken care of him, not killed him on sight so we would have to mourn again.”

Thane turned to them again. “We’ll have to form a plan, but let’s have that wait until noon. I…I must inform his mother. I’d like the both of you to stay quiet on the matter until we know what Baden will be like, since I don’t want to have all of House Rayne against me if I have to kill him. If someone asks why you’re here, say that you’re here to talk about Mauler tribes coming closer to the wood.” He turned to leave, then paused. “Feel free to make yourself at home. Call Mindle if you need anything until noon. Meet me at this room by then.” And he was gone.

Lyca studied Fawkes, trying to parse whether he really thought Baden could be brought back through his posture. Fawkes gave nothing away. He only took another biscuit and pushed the plate toward Lyca. 

***

“Baden is alive.” Thane said. Malora stared.

They were seated in front of the fire in Thane’s study, facing each other. It had been no hard feat to get Malora to his study. They often sat and chatted, and Thane found the old woman’s advice to be pertinent at times. Still, saying the words out loud made his own heartbeat with both fear and hope. They seemed silly, but at the same time a relief.

Instead of the sadness, confusion, or outright anger Thane had expected, however, Malora straightened in her chair, her eyes widening. She placed her teacup carefully on the table next to her and wiped her palms on her dress. “Thane? Think of what you’ve just said. Are you well? It is…not unheard of for men to go a little mad after the pressures of running a stronghold during wartime, Dura knows Gallor had once or twice. Loneliness, too, can make one see things. I can’t count the times I’ve heard my children’s voices, only to remember that they’ve passed and what I’m hearing are memories.”

Thane sat open-mouthed for a moment, until he put his words in the context of what Malora had seen. Then he had the sudden urge to smack his forehead, in the manner small children sometimes did, or bards when they acted out a skit. He laughed, a full one that filled the room, which had not been heard since Estrilda had been a young girl, before the Hypogeans had come to wreak havoc.

Malora sat, staring. Thane shook his head. A distant part of himself disapproved of how he was handling the situation, but the events of the last twenty-four hours had tested his resilience to odd situations. He was finding he was just about at the brink, and if he stayed stern, he would shatter.

“You have nothing to fear from that. This has only little to do about my episode at dinner yesterday evening, and last night. Lyca and a bounty hunter named Fawkes have just given me the news that Baden has been Graveborn these long years since his passing,” Thane said. “I understand him to be under control of a spectral being, who he can sometimes throw off.” He took a sip of his tea.

Malora continued to stare, though she slumped in her chair and took her teacup in hand again. “How can you be sure it’s him?” she asked. “Have they seen him before?”

“He was in control of himself at one point. He introduced himself, I suppose,” Thane said. “I trust Lyca, if not the bounty hunter. I could ask them how, too. This all may come to nothing.” It was then that he realized how tenuous their case was. Anyone could introduce themselves as Baden Rayne, if the man he was introducing himself to didn’t know Baden’s face.

“I don’t know how Lyca and Fawkes know, but I didn’t think to ask because last night I _knew_ it was him. I didn’t want to believe it, because he had been dead for more than twenty years! But my senses knew, just by how the man fought, how he stood. I knew it was him,” Thane said. “I _know_ it’s him.”

And like that, Malora’s face crumpled. She set the teacup clumsily on the tray, spilling some of it to the cloth below. She wiped at the tears furiously with her hands. Thane smiled, uncertain of what to do. It was like when he had tried to comfort Estrilda when she cried, but worse because Malora was older than he was. It was like watching his own mother cry when he’d told her he was going off to war, when she had seen him without an arm for the first time. When he put out his hand to touch her shoulder, she brushed it away. “No, dear. I’m only crying for the shock of it all. I’m not sad, not yet.”

Thane waited for Malora’s tears to halt, and they sat comfortably by the fire for a while, having nothing to say.

“Do you think he’ll be much changed, if he’s able to stay here?” Malora asked. 

“I’m not sure,” Thane replied. “The only Graveborns I’ve ever talked to I only knew as the undead, not in their previous lives.”

“Was he trying to hurt you? Us?”

Thane rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t tell from what little I’ve seen of him whether or not his actions are completely governed by the lich or not.”

Thane drank his cold tea, drifting a little in thought. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been sitting there until Malora stood and cupped his face in her hands. “Well, my dear, you are the person to bring him back to us. Remember to bring him back for yourself as well.” She kissed his forehead, gave him a knowing smile, and left the room. Thane stood in the chair, cheeks heating from more than the fire that warmed his boots.

***

Their plan, even with all the strategizing Lyca, Fawkes, and Thane had done previously, summed to simply waiting and hoping Baden would show up. Lyca patrolled around the Rayne property on her deer. Thane sat in the main courtyard and gardens, waiting in the moonlight, while Fawkes waited in the shadows.

The three had discussed and evaluated what they would do in any circumstance. The hope was to bring him home, if he could get the lich under control. If not? Fawkes had detailed how only a complete evisceration of the body would render the spells which brought Graveborn back useless. A few men on the roof waited with pots of flaming oil, which were hidden from view. Thane was surprised that he was not so against this method as he thought he would be; the idea of killing his friend was not abhorrent if it could save Baden an eternity of torture.

Soon it was midnight and the skies were bright with the Moon’s eerie glow. The night lulled Thane into thinking of other worries, despite his best efforts to remain alert. He could see everything, even Fawkes, who was expertly hidden in the shrubbery. Had Thane not been looking for him, though, he would never have found him.

It was when he was straining his eyes for Fawkes again that he saw the shadows move and pull at one another. They coalesced into a humanoid figure and it began to walk toward Thane. A few more came from the shadows.

Thane unsheathed his blade, looking around for the real Baden. The Moon was in his eyes. He couldn’t make out the faces. _Green, look for green_, he thought. He slowly turned on his heel, looking at each shadow as they slowly closed in on him. “Baden,” Thane called. “Baden, it’s me. I believe I may have attacked you instead of the other way around last night. I can say with certainty that you are still proficient with a blade.” Somewhere from the shrubbery, Thane swore he could hear a laugh, but he chose to ignore it.

“Baden, if you can hear me, I know you don’t want to hurt me. Fawkes says that you have a powerful will. Use it. Your family awaits you,” Thane commanded. The shadows still grew every closer and up close they were more menacing than the old swordsman care to admit. He was reminded of how real the shadow blades felt when he had parried their blows last night. The blades would likely feel as real when they cut through flesh. “Baden, please. I am your friend.” Thane let a bit of his fear show, then, hoping that it would push Baden’s soul to action, or at least cause the lich to hesitate. No such luck. They kept moving.

Still moving around in a circle, Thane finally saw him. He was concealed in the shadows and overgrowth of a willow. Sending a prayer to Dura, he made one final circle and then charged to the figure. The shadow he hit went sprawling, but before it hit the ground it dissolved and the others chased after him. Baden didn’t move except to open his stance, inviting the fight.

Like it had been that night, Thane fought a thousand swords with only one. Sometimes he fought Baden, other times he fought the spectral forms of shadows, that he either blocked or struck down in the hundreds. He was vaguely aware of Fawkes fighting in the background, of him occasionally sending arrows through the fray, some of which hit Baden and stuck out of him like he was a living pincushion. Lyca had been alerted and joined the fray, and everyone was trying to get to Baden, guardsmen included. Any strike that would have killed a mortal man did not; they only caused a momentary stutter in efficiency. Shadow clones apparated and disappeared at will until it was only Thane fighting a million adversaries.

They might have fought for hours, _years_, even. It was then that Thane began to think of the men on the wall. He had only to slowly lead Baden over to the edge and it would be over. The weariness in his limbs made him sloppy, and some of the sword blows began to find their mark. He wore only leather armor, a grave mistake, Thane found. Cuts blossomed and bled, until Thane could feel that his strength was waning. Baden had forced his hand.

And then with one well-placed blow, there was no question of bringing Baden back or killing him. The side of his blade hit Thane’s arm, shattering it and causing Thane’s own sword to clatter to the ground. He fell to his knees, ready for another blow, but none came. Baden was looking down at him, impassively. Thane looked around. There were no shadows around them; the others, Fawkes, Lyca, and the guards, were all fighting for their lives against them.

Baden slowly lifted his spear and Thane met his eyes. “Baden, I don’t know how much of you is left in there. I truly don’t know, but if there is any part of you that’s in there, save me. Save me as you did in battle. Please. I have always cared very much for you, so very much. _Please_.”

The spear continued to lift, and Thane fought every instinct to crawl away. It wouldn’t mean cheating death; it would only mean a less dignified one. He ducked his head, not courageous enough to look at the point as it came down. His thoughts were of the House. The Raynes’ wards and Malora were under guard, but he cursed himself anyway for his mistake. He had thought Baden’s powers were limited somewhat, but it seemed he was capable of created a million swordsmen at once, capable of overrunning the household. Thane thought it a blessing that he would die before he could see what he had sworn to protect destroyed by one of the people he had held most dear in his life.

Still, the spear did not come down. Thane didn’t dare look, was afraid to move lest some sudden movement prompted his death. Then, a squelch, the sound of flesh and bone being pierced, and a scream. Thane’s head snapped up, then.

Baden stumbled backward, landing hard. His spear was lodged in his chest, where a glowing eye had been. Spidery appendages struggled from Baden’s, desperately scrabbling at the spear and his chest. Something was screaming, and Thane stared in revulsion as he realized it was the _thing in Baden’s chest_. It writhed and tried to pull itself bodily from Baden’s chest, but no luck. Baden took the spear out and brought it down again and again and again, until the thing was a bloody pulp and the screams had subsided.

Thane stared and slowly, he became aware of Fawkes and Lyca beside him and the dead silence of the yards beyond. “Dura,” Fawkes said, looking at his arm, and at Baden’s chest. Lyca knelt as if to heal it, but Thane ignored the both of them. He crawled on his knees to Baden, who sat on the ground, expressionless.

“Baden?” Thane said.

Glowing green eyes turned to his, surprisingly lucid. “Thane,” it said, muffled by the muzzle. Baden undid the strap of his muzzle, revealing the face in the painting. In the sunlight, Thane was sure that the face would be sickly, almost alien. But in the moonlight, where everyone was rendered ghostly, Baden looked as he always had, if less cheerful than usual.

Thane was crying, just a little, and he would be lying if he wasn’t a bit put out about not being about to rub the tears away. There were a thousand things he could say, a million things. He wanted to tell Baden about Estrilda, how she had bloomed into the general she was today. He wanted to tell Baden about the deaths of his children and wife. He wanted to tell him about all that he had missed and more, yet what came out was a choked. “Our arms match.”

Baden stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, looked down at his own body, and then smiled. “We do,” he said. His voice was rougher, like it coming through a few layers of dirt, but it was still Baden’s reassuring, warm voice.

Lyca touched Thane’s shoulder. “I’m going to find Nemora. Arden will hear my calls and be able to find her. She will fix your arm and make sure Baden is safe.” Then she was gone, her mount and herself a bright, glowing dot that disappeared into the forest beyond. Fawkes stood awkwardly by, and then knelt by Baden. He took out a knife and for a moment Thane’s heart stopped. Instead of plunging the knife between Baden’s eyes, Fawkes only sawed off the blade attached to his stump. He took it and retreated to the shadows to wait for Lyca.

Baden was studying Thane. “I’ve hurt you.”

“Not you,” Thane said shortly, wiping residual tears with his knees.

“Not me,” Baden agreed. He reached out his hand and touched Thane’s chin, turning his head up and to the side. “You’ve gotten old.”

Thane longed to be able to jab at him. “And you’ve gotten colder.”

They sat, almost awkwardly, and exhaustion hit Thane like a brick. He lay down. “I think I might sleep, Baden. Don’t leave again, while I sleep.” He felt a sharp pain, and realized it was Baden holding his hand. Thane fell asleep, deeply, and didn’t dream.

***

Thane awoke at what had to be later that day, if he had not slept through more than one. Afternoon sun spilled through the windows. The cuts Thane had gotten the night before stung and his arm was sore. Experimentally, he moved it. Despite the soreness, there seemed to be nothing to hint that it had been completely shattered the night before.

Thane looked up when he heard the sound of hooves on stone. A small sheep woman came in, holding a bag of what smelled like herbs. She smiled. When Thane moved to sit up, she hurried over and pressed him down firmly into his bed. “Oh, no, dear. You shouldn’t move yet. My magic hasn’t fully worked its way out of your system, and I wouldn’t like you to hurt yourself while you heal.”

The sheep woman stood at a table that had been moved in. She emptied the herbs on the table and began crushing and mixing them with a mortar and pestle. Despite her warnings, Thane shifted himself up in his bed. “You must be Nemora. House Rayne welcomes you. I am Sir Thane.”

Nemora laughed. “Thank you for such a welcome. Lyca has spoken highly of you and your servants have been very kind, though I myself am not comfortable in houses like these.” She picked up a forehoof and waved it around gingerly. “Not made for my kind, you see.” Coming from someone else, the words might have seemed accusatory, but from Nemora it was an observation made between friends.

Thane scanned the room. Fawkes sat in a chair, sleeping. Baden was nowhere to be seen. “He had quite a night, you know,” Nemora said. “Fighting your friend, then having to explain to me what had happened once Lyca had gotten me has left him quite tired out.”

“It was probably more the strain of talking than the fighting,” Thane said. “Lyca’s not here?”

“No. I told her that she should stay in the wood. The Wilders have short supply of leaders these days and she is one of the best. I could handle it, and I have.” Nemora took the herbs she had crushed into a paste and stirred them in a bowl with water. “Here. This will help with the stiffness in your arm. You’ll be back to your old self by tomorrow.”

Thane gave it a dubious look. It looked like swamp dirt, but he took the spoon and bowl Nemora offered and spooned it into his mouth, wincing when he moved too quickly. It didn’t taste nearly as bad as he thought. It tasted like summer and Thane swore he could feel his muscles being infused with light as he ate.

Nemora folded her legs underneath her and closed her eyes, meditating. A gentle glow permeated her form and Thane felt muscles that he didn’t know he had tensed go limp. He set the now empty bowl on the side table just in time. He wasn’t sure he had coordination anymore. In fact, he felt a bit giddy.

When Nemora finally got up to leave, Thane nearly forgot to ask. “Baden!” he choked out. In the corner, Fawkes’s form jerked up. His eyes were wide and his blue hand tensed upward, but it relaxed when he realized where he was. Thane didn’t know who to address anymore, so he addressed the ceiling. “Where is he?”

Fawkes stood up and stretched. “His mother.” He disappeared down the hallway.

Nemora set a gentle hand on his Thane’s shoulder. “Do try to take care of yourself. You cannot be here for others if you let your own body and soul go to waste.” She patted Thane shoulder and left.

It was some indeterminable time that finally a person entered the room. The giddiness had left Thane and he now only felt a tiredness that went down to his bones. It was all he could to do stay awake even with the Sun coming through the windows. A weight settled on the end of his bed.

Despite all the changes that would surely take some time getting used to, Thane thought Baden looked like an angel. A corpse-like angel, to be sure, but beautiful, nonetheless. Thane offered him a hand and let out an undignified groan where he had meant to welcome his old friend. Nemora’s attentions had left him more vulnerable and helpless than he thought.

Luckily, Baden seemed to understand. He took Thane’s hand and sat silently for a while. The bandages and ragged armor he had worn the night before were replaced with musty, clean clothes from his wardrobe. His hair, that had previously been unwashed and unkempt, was clean and tied back. Even the slight smell of death that had clung to Baden that night when one got too close was masked with posies that he kept in his pocket. He looked almost as he had before death, except for the pale skin and green, glowing eyes.

Dura, Thane felt old.

“My friend, I apologize for what I did, though I suppose it was for the best, and neither of us is worse for wear,” Baden said. His original customary good humor in his eyes was gone, yet Thane couldn’t fault him for it; his own arrogance had melted away long ago. Time, even if it didn’t take the body, took the mind. “In fact, I find that I’ve felt better than I have in a long, long time.” He smiled.

Thane took a moment, struggling to get his mind to connect to his mouth to say what he desperately wanted to say. There were a million things that had built up like a bubble over the years and years and which had expanded by what seemed like millions after finding out Baden was still alive. “How are you dealing with…your family?” Thane finally mumbled out. He closed his eyes, unable to keep them open for long anymore.

There was a long pause, and Thane squeezed his hand. “Malora told you, didn’t she?”

Baden sighed. “I would have guessed, in time. For what purpose would you be in charge of the household, if not for the deaths of my children?”

“House Rayne,” Thane grumbled, his face tensing with worry again. Baden chuckled, though to Thane’s ears it seemed wet. A cold hand smoothed over his face.

“Peace, Thane. We will figure what to do when you are more awake. I have what seems to be all the time in the world,” Baden said. He paused. “Estrilda has made me proud.”

“Made _me_ proud, too,” Thane said.

Then the hand around Thane’s clenched down and Thane groaned painfully. The pressure instantly let up. “Sorry. Just…thank you.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Thane said. “For your…body? No. Death.”

Baden laughed. “You know I couldn’t be mad about that. It was my actions, not yours. I could have left you, but I couldn’t. Do not worry yourself about that.”

Thane opened his eyes again. Baden was looking at him, more softly than Thane had thought anyone had ever looked at him. “I worry about a lot of things.”

The feelings Thane had kept guarded for so long rose to the surface. He admitted it to himself in his head. _I was in love with him, just a little. No, a lot. I am in love with what he was, and I think I could fall in love with him again as he is now. _Thane reddened as if he had said the words aloud. Baden frowned, pressing his cold hand to his flaming cheeks.

“Are you taking sick? What’s wrong?” Baden said.

Thane reached up, despite the pain, and held Baden’s hand to his cheek. “I am just very glad I have been able to see you again, my friend.” The few tears that escaped before Thane could blink them away were swept away with Baden’s thumb.

They sat like that for a while, Baden stroking Thane’s face, while Thane stared at a visage he had thought he’d ever see again. Nemora’s magic pushed Thane ever closer to sleep. When Baden’s hand served more as a pillow than a simple comfort, Baden adjusted Thane so he lay against the pillows comfortably. Baden turned to leave, until a soft voice called to him. “Baden, wait. Stay. For a little while.”

Baden paused and went to go take the chair Fawkes had previously sat in at the edge of the bed. Thane turned his head toward him, cracked his eyes, and shook his head. “_Here,_” Thane muttered. Baden froze, uncertain.

“I do not sleep as you do,” Baden said.

Thane turned his face away. “Alright. Hold my shoulder. _Something_. So I know I’m not going mad. You’re here.”

Glancing around the room for help that wasn’t there, Baden sighed and carefully climbed into the bed, toeing off his boots. He placed an arm on Thane’s side. Soon, Thane was asleep, truly comforted for the first time since Estrilda had left for war.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I plan on writing a companion piece to this one, maybe with more of Baden's POV and Thane (perhaps) admitting his feelings. We'll see. This one took me long enough to finish already :P Also, sorry for the weird formatting? I'll try to make it so it's more uniform on my next upload. 
> 
> Also, leave a comment! I'm starved for discussion about AFK Arena and always like to hear people's thoughts about it.


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